a silver lining holds the sky
by kidzpoptsuna
Summary: Life can be a bit absurd. When Midoriya finds himself falling face first into a forest, there's a lot of things he was expecting. Villains, All for One, more villains. Not flames of different attributes, a world with no quirks, a man that defies logic, and a mafia family turning vigilante. In a world of flames and power, he finds himself sinking into more of a mess than he wants.
1. Chapter 1

A palette of colors swirl in front of him. Blues, purples, oranges, greens, reds, yellows, and indigos connect with each other in a tight unison, a balance. What should be chaos is nothing short of beauty, and as he stares at the colors, the orange beckons him. It calls and with his scarred hands, he grasps for it. It's warm, curling around his fingers and it soothes him. He closes his eyes and breathes. The warmth around his hand disappears and soon, there's wind rushing around him.

When he opens his eyes again, there's a ground beneath him and _wow, is that ground getting closer?_ Oh jeez, oh boy, he gasps as he realizes, he's falling. He's falling and he can't activate full cowl, because there's no land. And there's no Uraraka around to save him from colliding with the ground. The air swirls around him as he looks for something, anything. He wasn't going to die here. He _couldn't_ die here. He hasn't even - he hasn't even passed on the mantle yet! One for All wasn't going to end here, with him. He just needed time.

As he descends, he can see that he wasn't even going to be given that. He could see it now. Midoriya Izuku, 17 years old, found dead splattered against the fucking ground. His mother would cry and Bakugou would try to fight his corpse. The landscape was quickly changing and it wasn't easy. There were trees, and more trees, coming into view. The air pressure against his eyes reminded him of the entrance exam. His eyes were tearing up, and if anyone asked - if he survived this, he means - then he would say it was because of the air pressure and not because he was really, _really fucking scared._ He didn't know how he could fix this. He called on Full Cowl, feeling its power thrum beneath his skin. _Please, please._ If he used Full Cowl, maybe, just maybe, he could soften the fall. But he would still break some bones and he didn't know which was worse, dying from bleeding out or dying from a deadly fall.

The latter, definitely the latter.

Before he could even accept his death and internally list off who was getting his stuff ( _you aren't getting_ ** _ **shit,**_** _Bakugou. Fuck you._ ) a puff of purple began to swallow the trees, and he cringed. _A Quirk?_ Perhaps an airborne quirk. Possibly poisonous, and could be related to the reason he was _literally falling out of the sky._ He could handle this. Totally. He fought Stain, he fought (kind of) the Noumu's, went against a Yakuza boss who could literally reconstruct body parts! He would be fine!

He would not be fine. Most definitely not. He figured, with all of the trees, he would be able to make some type of foothold out of them, but no, he managed to almost land in the _one spot_ where there were no trees. No trees, no foothold, and he couldn't even see because of the purple smoke.

As he takes in his first inhale of the smoke, it dissipates, and circles his body, suspending him in midair. His green hair was centimeters from the ground, and he wants to cry. So badly. He sniffles, holding in his tears. He wasn't going to cry. He can feel the blood rush to his head as he stares at the little tiny ants on the forest floor. Was this a trap? Was this the work of a villain? It was easy to forget those things as he stares at the ants, doing their little jobs.

He was suspended by something he couldn't even see. There wasn't any type of rope or anything, so he couldn't even break it. Full Cowl wasn't going to be any good here, and he had already let it bleed out of his system when he had realized he wasn't going to be able to make a foothold. It was annoying to say the least. He didn't know how much time had passed since he was first caught and the thought that this was a hideout for villains made his blood run cold. He didn't have any of his gear, his hero costume. His phone might still be in his pocket, but after a fall like that, he would be surprised if it was still there.

Focusing on not crying, not freaking out, and remaining as _Zen_ as much as he can, he hears leaves begin to crinkle near him. It's easy to tell from their almost simultaneously rhythmic and chaotic beats, it was obvious these were footsteps, footsteps of multiple people. It made him nervous. If this really was a villain hideout, he was completely useless. He might be able to fight his way out, maybe, but getting out of the forest without help from someone within the possible organization wasn't going to be easy, especially if the followers were loyal.

Voices follow the footsteps and there are multiple voices, just like he suspected. However, even as the voices got closer, he wasn't able to understand a single word that they were saying. It was a different language, and not one he could understand. He liked to think he was pretty good at English. He was a nerd and not getting a good grade in that class would sully his name as one. But this language wasn't English, wasn't like anything he would be able to recognize. He waits until he sees the feet of his captors and tries his best to put on a smile. It was hard with how his head with particularly numb from being upside down for so freaking long.

"H... Hello?" He cringes at the sound of his English. His accent was heavy and his L's were still hard to pronounce.

"Japanese?" Midoriya wasn't able to see who it came from, but the voice was surprisingly gentle. "Do you speak Japanese?" It took a moment for him to be able to realize the man had asked a question in Japanese.

"Yes! Oh, uh. Can you please let me down? I kind of got stuck here and I don't know where I am." His tongue felt heavy in his mouth and it was very, very hard to focus or think. "I had just finished my shift at the local hero agency, and was walking home when it got really dark and then there was some weird color-flame things and I think that someone used a warping quirk on me and then I was falling in the sky and somehow there was purple smoke so I thought there was a villain base near here and wow- I'm talking too much, sorry." He flushes pink as a soft chuckle meets his rambling.

In a split second, he lands fully on the ground, making a soft 'oof' sound as he lays in the grass. Now that he wasn't upside down and blood was finally flowing away from his head, he was able to get a good look of his supposed captors. The man in the front had a black cape, and looked... important? Regal? His kind smile, amber eyes, and fluffy brown hair made him feel like this wasn't normal. Made him feel like this wasn't something he was supposed to be allowed to see. The warmth that emitted from the man made everything weird, different. A cough pulled his attention from the man to those both behind and beside the man. It was easy to tell who the leader was. However, as much as he was used to seeing quirks, the group looked so strange. A man with silver hair, another child around his age with an afro, a man with purple hair- and none of them had any strange attributes that could reveal what their quirks were.

The leader leaned down in front of him, and Midoriya watched as the man's gloved hand reached out. "Won't you come with us?" There was something terrifying about how the gloves clinged to his hands in a perfect fit. It was terrifying how gentle the man's smile was, but his eyes spoke of danger and hurt. His hand places itself in the man's hand. The man may be terrifying, but the idea of staying in a forest he knew nothing of reminded too much of his first-year summer camp and he would rather not have a repeat, thank you very much.

"Juudaime! We can't show this boy where we live!" The silver-haired man scowled, glaring at Midoriya, but Midoriya hadn't spent most of his life dealing with glares for nothing. He held his ground. The man opened his mouth to say something, probably to insult him.

"Hayato." It was a simple command, a usage of a name, Midoriya guessed, and that was all it took.

The man helped Midoriya to his feet and smiled. "He's not a threat. Right?" Midoriya found himself shaking his head quickly. This wasn't what he was expecting. The man gave off the same feeling of danger that All for One had in the fight against All Might. There wasn't much he could do, besides agree.

What had he gotten himself into? A true problem child, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

The leaves crunched beneath his feet as he walked silently beside the professionally dressed group. The feeling of awkwardness began to seep into his bones. It was hard to ignore, when those around him were so very quiet. With the silence seeping in from every corner, Midoriya wonders, is this a test? A logical ruse? In the back of his mind, he's expecting Aizawa-sensei to pop out and berate him for giving information as easy as he had, much less for following people who might be lethal. Okay, so perhaps 'might be lethal' wasn't right. Definitely lethal. That sounded better.

And it wasn't particularly wrong to believe in the fact that he might be able to take them, if he knew their quirks. The only thing he knew was that one of the quirks was airborne, but the others? No idea. So, he pauses, feeling anxiety curl into the bottom of his stomach, what's the plan? The only way out, it seemed, was to stick with the other people. If he could get information from them, he would be fine. At least, he really hoped he would.

The quiet of the group made his skin crawl. He was used to villains being talkative _(- Shigaraki always loved to go on monologues. Would look at Midoriya like he was a minor boss. Always spoke about grinding and how he was leveling up. Even Stain had spoken too much. - )_ so the quiet of the supposed villains made him anxious. The lack of speech made them seem experienced, made it seem like they knew exactly what information they would give him before they had even opened their mouths. It made this even more dangerous.

He wondered-had they ever killed someone before? Stumbling away into his own thoughts, his shoulder collided with someone beside him as he tripped on a root. He hated trees. "Oh. Are you okay?"

This boy (- really, he was a teen, but Midoriya couldn't help btu see him as a boy copared to the people he was hanging out with-) had to have been the youngest of the group. His eye seemed to be in a permanent wink, and his brown eyes - well, eye - seemed to be swimming with anxiety and concern themselves. Before he could even think about stopping himself, Midoriya found himself blurting, "Does winking have somethig to do with your quirk?" He felt his body begin to heat in embarrassment, from his cheeks to neck to his neck.

The teen pursed his lips, his eyebrows furrowing, one of them raising in an arc, and Midoriya never felt more stupid. Of course it did- why else would he be winking all of the time? "I suppose so." The teen's answer made Midoriya's curl a bit, a tiny smile.

"Really? I thought so! What type of quirk do you have? Were you the reason for the purple smoke? Do you you have a telepathic like quirk? That's so cool! You know that kind of quirk is perfect for Hero work. I've never seen you at any of the other Hero schools, though. We could train together sometime..." He could feel his body heat rising, and took a moment to breathe before mumbling a gentle "if you'd like to."

The confusion stuck on the other teen's face is what made Midoriya, who had opened his mouth open once again, close it. He hadn't even noticed it, but the people around him had stopped as well. There was nothing but the chips of the birds in the trees. The looks in the eyes of those around him made him call on all for one subconsciously. There was something wrong. Horribly wrong. The thrum of his quirk hummed in his veins. He needed to get away. He let himself chatter way too much. There was a difference between being friendly and purposefully trying to get someone to talk. He had a feeling the teen was trying to do the latter.

It made him feel disgusting. He had fallen completely into a trick, something he should have been able to see through. The group in the suits watched him with calculating eyes, and he stared right back at them. It wasn't right. This whole thing felt weird.

The realization bombarded him.

This wasn't real. He wasn't in a forest. He had fallen into one, of course, but the whole time he hadn't felt like himself. If this quirk was anything like Shinso's, then there was a way to defeat it: through pain. He ground his teeth ground, before finally biting his tongue.

The forest slowly began to dissipate. Midoriya scowled, his narrowed eyes searching amongst the trees. There was a distant laugh, a somewhat embarrassing 'kufufu'.

A soft voice floated near him, whispering softly, "You're quite good, aren't you? As expected of a Sky."

The voice sent shivers down his spine, and he felt himself back up. This was all an illusion. He had as much power here as the other person. This was just a quirk. There was nothing to be a afraid of. This was just like Shinso's quirk. There was a limit. He just needed to find it.

"Kufufu, as entertaining as this is, I'm afraid the Boss wants me to let you go now. We've got all the information we need."

 **Midoriya woke up with a start.**

The light blinded him as his eyes fluttered open. It was bright, and it took a few minutes for his eyes to get used to the sunlight. It was loud in the room, a couple of people loudly arguing around him, and the noise made his head pulse.

"Shut up, he's awake."

Now, Midoriya had been raised right. His mother loved him with all she had, and taught him to always try to make good first impressions. But he doesn't even think his mother would been able to say anything better besides... "What the fuck." Midoriya blinked. And then blinked again. It's not that it was a particularly weird sight. Well, it was, but it was less the people that made things seem weird. It was more the little animals on the people's shoulders, arms, and in their hands that made him wonder if he was truly seeing what he was seeing or if he was just simply hallucinating.

Judging from the small little roar that the tiny, flame bound lion gave, I'm guessing that it was instead an actual animal instead of, well, a plush animal. There was a lot of things he had been surprised about. Meeting strange people, falling out of the sky, having to deal with illusions. Those were all things he could regularly handle. Now, the animals? That was new.

The teen from his dream (Well, illusion really), puffed a laugh, before staring curiously at him. It made his cheeks flush. It was awkward. He hated being stared at. It always made him feel like there was something in his teeth or like there was something on his face. The room was quite crowded. It seemed like there was at least 10 people in there, and it was awkward. Midoriya found his eyes driftng to the man with the brown fluffy like hair. The regal air around him was the same, however, there was a distinct difference between the man at th efoot of his bed and the man that was in his illusion. The man at the foot of his bed had a stark scar across his cheek. It was faded and looked old. It looked a lot like the scar that was across his hands, from his freshma year of high school.

The man was so obviously the leader. No one was in front of him, everyone else on either side of him. He was the only man that, despite his scar, didn't seem scarily dangerous. The man noticed him staring and Midoriya felt himself growing red again, because, well, jeez that's awkward. The man just simply smiled, before looking at everyone else in the room. "Alright, out. You're being too loud!"

"But Juudaime-" The silver-haired man from the illusion said, and wow, the guy with the illusion quirk got this guy down pat.

"Nope, out." The man - _Juudaime?_ \- just laughed softly, shooing them out. There wasn't anything angry in his expression. Just pure fondness.

"Fine." The man turned abruptly to Midoriya, "if you try anything, I'll blow you up."

Somehow, Midoriya didn't doubt that.

The defeaning silence that ensued after the rowdy bunch left had his skin prickling. Just because the man didn't look dangerous doesn't mean he wasn't. Toga looked as innocent as a middle school girl _( - though middle school girls were dangerous too. Too many signed autographs could make a guy go crazy. How did All Might do it? - )_ but that didn't mean she hadn't tried to kill him numerous times before she had been locked up.

When the man opened his mouth, he had been expecting a surplus of things. Threats, questions, anything really. What he got was, "You're supposed to be here, are you?"

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Want faster updates? Leave me a review! You can also come talk to me on my tumblr kidzboptsuna! Hopefully I'll be getting out the next chapter out soon! I'm still working on a complete rewrite of **Reborn as Yamamoto Himeko** , so! I guess some of you might look forward to that.


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